Method of making paper or other articles



A. L. WEIS METHOD OF MAKING PAPER OR OTHER ARTICLES Filed Dec. 12, 19212 Sheets-Sheet 1 f0t 9 A. L. WEIS METHOD OF MAKING PAPER OR OTHERARTICLES 1921 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Dec. 12

EUZHZLOF fizdrzwLV/zzls Patented Oct. 1 6 1923.

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ANDREW L. WEIS, OF MONROE, MICHIGAN, ASSIG-NOR TO THE WEIS FIBRE CON--TAINER CORPORATION, MONROE,

DAKOTA.

I 1,471,225 PATENT OFFICE.

MICHIGAN, A CORPORATION OF SOUTH METHOD OF MAKING PAPER OR OTHERARTICLES.

Application filed December 12, 1921. Serial No. 521,664."

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ANDREW L. WEIS, a citizen of the United States, andresident of Monroe, in the county of Monroe and State of Michigamhaveinvented a certain new and useful Improvement in Methods of Making Paper.or ,Other Articles, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to the manufacture 1 of paper articles, or otherarticles made from sheet material, such as paper butter dishes orplates, or other similar articles which can be cut readily from sheetmaterial and which can be packed or nested tightly together 1 forshipping purposes.

Generally stated, the object of the invention is to provide an improvedprocess or method of manufacture whereby paper plates or dishes or othersimilar articles are economically and conveniently cut and formed andthen packed or nested tightly together in tubes or containers, such asordinary paper tubes, or any similar container of any suitable ordesirable character.

It is also an object to provide certain details and features tending toincrease the general efliciency and desirability of a procem or methodof manufacture of this particular character.

To this and other useful ends the invention consists in mattershereinafter set forth and claimed and shown in the accompanying drawingsin which- Fig. 1 is a vertical section of the forming ortion of amachine for making small paper butter plates in accordance with theprocess or method involving the principles of the invention.

Fig. 2 is an enlarged side elevation of a M paper tube containing saidpaper butter plates nested or packed tightly together in the desiredmanner.

Fig. 3 is a plan of one of the round or disc-like blanks which are cutout of the sheet of paper and from which the said butter plates areformed.

Fig. 4: is a plan or top view of one of said butter plates.

Fig. 5 is a section on line 55 in Fig. 4.

As thus illustrated the round or disc-like blank 1 is cut from the sheetof paper 2 by any suitable or desired means, apparatus or punching meansbeing shown in Fig. 1 for this purpose. Preferably, as a apparatusmatter of further and special improvement two or more sheets of paperare moved simultaneously one upon the other through the machine formaking the plates, whereby a plurality of blanks of the kind shown inFig. 3 are made simultaneously by each downward stroke of the machine.Immediately after the punching out of the blanks 1 and practically bythe same operation, the dies of the machine press the edges of theblanks upward, as shown in Fig. 5, causing these edges to become flutedor corrugated, thus forming a shallow plate,

adapted for any suitable or desired purpose,

and depending upon the size thereof. As the blanks are thus punched andformed in the desired manner, they are forced down ward in the papertube 3 which is held in the machine by any suitable or desired means.The machine continues in operation, so that the plates 4, such as theone shown in Figs. 4 and 5, are pressed gradually downward until the.tube is filled and until the lower end of the stack ofplates rests uponthe obstruction or support which forms a part of said machine and'whichis placed in position at the lower end of the tube 3 to close the latterand thereby prevent the plates from dropping out at the lower endthereof. The operation continues, of

course, and even after the tube is apparently filled, inasmuch as theplates can be forced downward to compress the stack of plates in thetube. In other words, the tube 3 is not removed from the machine untilafter the plates are compressed or packed so' tightly therein that itbecomes practically impossible to force any more of them 1nto the tube.The compression of the plates together in this manner producespractically a solid mass of plates and the tube is then removed and canbe sealed at the opposite ends thereof for shipment.

and automatically forcing them into the tubes or other containers may beof any suitable or desired character, of course, and the shown in Fig. 1of the drawings is merely illustrative of one form of machine which canbe used for this Purpose. Prefer-ably, asexplained, the dies or cuttingor punching or forming means for punchm the plates and forming them areadapts for pushing them directly into the opening The apparatus ormachinery for thus making the plates in the tube 3, the latter havingbeen placed in the machine by hand or in any suitable or desired manner.The compression is longitudinally of the tube 3, of course, during theoperation-of filling the tube, and the latter is formed of materialcap-able of withstanding any lateral pressure exerted upon the wallsthereof by the compression of the stack of plates therein. The diameterof the tube 3 is preferably such that the plates when punched and formeddo not immediately fall to the lower end of the tube but are held backby the side-walls of thetube, whereby the crimped or fluted formation ofthe edges of the plates is maintained. In other words, the tube not onlyserves to carry the compact and solid mass of plates but also serves toprevent the plates from flattening out after they are made. In thls way,therefore, the plates reach the consumer in good condition and in aneconomical manner and under circumstances which prevent any distortionof the plates during shipment or when placed on sale in stores or otherplaces. Also by punching and forming a plurality of the plates at onetime, from sheets of paper or other material lying flatwise, one uponthe other, the plates are formed tightly together and are tightly andcompactly compressed practically without' any space between them in thetube or other container. However, of course, the plates are not sotightly packed or nested in the tubes in which they are shipped thatthey are hard or difficult toremove from the tubes after the latter areopened at either one or both ends thereof. This, moreover,

" I insures a clean product, inasmuch as the plates are not at any timehan'dled between the time when they are formed and the time when theyfinally reach the consumer or user. The plates are produced in groupsand the members of the groups are never separated until after the platesare discharged from the tube for use. A plurality of plates, forexample, forming a group is pushed into the tube before they areseparated, andthe members of the group are 'then held together untilafter they are discharged from the tube.

By thismethod it will be seen that the stack of plates moves graduallydownward unt l the lower end thereof reaches its final position.Thereafter, as explained, plates are added at the upper end of the stackor column to increase the capacity and to com- .press the stack.Therefore, the lower end of the stack first moves downward until it vendof the tube to the other.

stops, and thereafter the upper end of the stack moves downward becauseof the continued addition of plates after the stack has moved downwarduntil it reaches from one This makes a very solid package of maximumcapacity, sofa-r as the number of plates which can be packed therein,for any give-n size of tube.

lVhat I claim as my invention is:

1. In a process or method for the manufacture of articles from sheetmaterial, the forming of said articles from suitable sheet material by asuitable punching operation, and packing such articles tightly togetherin a container, using said punching operation to force the articles intosaid container, and to gradually compress and form them into a solidstack therein, which stack increases by successive additions of articlesthereto through one end of the container,

so that the stack is gradually pushed into the container until the innerend of the stack reaches the other end of the container, with enoughfriction between the articles and the inner surface of the container tokeep the articles compressed tightly together while the inner end of thestack is gradually moving toward the other end of the container, andcompressing the stack by the addition of articles at the outer end ofthe stack after the inner end thereof has reached its final position.

2. The process or method specified in claim 1, said articles being paperplates with fluted edges, so that the plates are compressed and nestedone within the other, and said container being a tube of such diameterthat the walls thereof frictionally engage said fluted edges of theplates, so that the tube is employed to maintain the shape of the platesduring the formation of the stack and during the compression thereofafter the tube is apparently filled, as set forth.

3. A process or method as specified in claim 1, in which said punchingoperation is performed on a plurality of superposed layers of sheetmaterial, so that each punching operation produces as many articles asthere are sheets resting one upon another,

- REW L. IS.

'and'whereby the articles are more firmly

